When All Lights Go Out
by Seishuku Skuld
Summary: The Sakurazukamori's room is full of candles, made to lure spirits to his home. What happens when the Sakurazukamori encounters a capricious spirit?


**When All Lights Go Out**  
By Seishuku Skuld  
Series: X  
Pairing: implied Seishirou/Subaru  
Warnings: whatever usual baggage comes along with SxS  
Date: September 2004

Disclaimer: borrowing the CLAMP characters for the purposes of world domination. CLAMP doesn't say I can't, so I'll give them back when I rule the world—mwa ha ha ha ha.

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There was a reason he kept the curtains closed. There was a reason there were  
no electric lights in his apartment. All the outlets in the wall were bare, the phone cord long disconnected, its plug lying on the floor gathering dust. Where there once were lamps there were now only empty tables and lonely corners. He had thrown the lamps out long ago after they had been shattered, but there were hundreds of lights greeting him as he stepped through the doorway, opening the door with a slow, silent swoosh that barely disturbed the rows of flames that stared at him curiously as he shed his outermost layer of clothes and lay them on a chair hidden in the darkness.  
  
He walked past the lights and they barely swayed as he passed, standing, tall and upright, unwavering in their dim glow, columns of golden teardrop crystal, moving only to the whispered voices of the spirits which would occasionally come to disturb him.  
  
It was an expensive and time-consuming habit to keep up, but the Sakurazukamori had enough of both for at least two expensive habits—cigarettes and candles—with enough leftover for the minimum necessities that every human required.  
  
His hands were bloody as he glided into the kitchen, leaving dark stains on the counter and on the handles of the door of the cupboard above the sink. He went about this routine every night when he came home. The metal of the brass handle was already covered in several weeks of dried blood. It was a ritual for him--morning, noon, night, and whenever he had the spare time. His rooms were stuffy, dark lairs for he never opened his window or his curtains, and he always kept the door shut. What small drafts came in the through the cracks beneath the door were quickly consumed by the lights. He had long ago ceased to wonder what would happen to him once the oxygen ran out in his room. He supposed the lights might flicker out one by one and he be extinguished with them, but he had only given that a moment's thought before passing on. There were faster, more efficient ways of death than slow suffocation, and he could count at least twenty, half of which he had used himself.  
  
The candles burned around the clock, even though he had long since thrown out any time-keeping devices and let his body's natural rhythm adapt to the constant night, shifting it slightly from its normal circadian course. Often he found that he would wake up from the fitful naps that served him as sleep just as one candle was dying, its light extinguishing in a trail of smoke, and he would scramble up from his bed, his floor, or his couch, hurrying to replace the cooling pool of wax with a new, bloodstained column.  
  
They were pleasing to his eyes whenever he returned to his home, his eyes so accustomed to the dark that they were unable to tolerate the light of day for very long. The semi-darkness of his abode was much more pleasing to him, the drops of flame standing tall and unflickering as if frozen in time, save for the drip-drip of wax that told him time was indeed still passing.  
  
His teacher had told him once a long time ago, when he was first growing into his power that candles were heralds of the spirits, bright lights capable of reaching far into the netherworld to serve as beacons for guiding spirits home. This place in particular was home to many spirits, some more malevolent than others. They were drawn to him—his lights and his power—but for the most part the spirits passed him by, taking curious looks at the apartment and its occupant before going on their way, doing whatever capricious spirits did. He would occasionally open his eyes suddenly in the middle of his meditation and see the candlelights flicker, all tilting in one direction as a ghost would approach, drawn like an insect to the light, only to leave disappointed when it discovered that the lights hadn't lit the path to its home, but instead to the residence of another.  
  
He could never hold onto them quite long enough to ask them questions; he had yet to capture the elusive spirits which flitted sometimes by his rooms. And those that did linger did not seem to know much—their memories lost—as they wandered like children. He was kind to these ghosts, his rare smiles born out of some strange tenderness buried deep inside his heart. Perhaps it was just nostalgia that bid him to do so. Or perhaps he did still feel something for the innocent wanderers his lights attracted. He did what little he could to guide them home, in hopes that one day if they might remember, they would come back to him with the news he sought.

This day he was trying extra hard.

It was already late into the afternoon. He had been awake since the previous night's sundown, but he was not tired. Since reentering his house he had been sitting in the middle of the hardwood floor, the symbols of his practice carved and burned deep into the wood. He had put them there when he had erected the candles, in hopes of catching the spirits.

He opened one eye as he sensed a small disturbance in the air around him. He turned his head to the side, seeing the candles there flutter. Without another thought he extended both his hands and eight black ofuda fell onto the floor about him, flared briefly with light and then all went back to darkness, save for the fact that he had finally captured a spirit. That one had lingered longer than others, perhaps because it was a young one, too curious for its own good. Or perhaps it liked the feeling of his house and the sugary taste of his power, and decided it wanted to stay for a bit. Regardless of its intentions, he asked with it his usual formal politeness whether or not the spirit had seen the person he was searching for.

The candles danced as it spoke, the lights disturbed by the ghost's movement. The flames jumped and fell, some candles burning taller and brighter than others, as drops of hot wax fell and congealed onto the floor, spelling out a strange but precise language that only he could read.  
  
_No._  
  
He sighed and was about to wave it on its way, but the wax continued to fall, large beads of white plummeting to the floor with soundless splashes.  
  
_But I __can hear him._  
  
His lifted his eyebrows in question. He felt the ghost drift in front of his face and settle there not too far away from him. The wax stopped falling, the candlelights pausing as the ghost stilled. Perhaps it was trying to recall the subtleties of human expression. It was a few moments before another bead of wax fell on the floor.  
  
_It's a pity you ca__nnot._  
  
He cocked his head to the side every so slightly, not fully believing this spirit which had stumbled upon him. It was the not the first time he was unwilling to believe a ghost's words.  
  
_Did you know that murderers can't hear the screams of spirits?_  
  
The ghost flitted through him, pausing in the center of his mind's eye. He could not see its form for it did not chose to reveal itself to him, but he could feel the chill of its otherworldly touch, his skin prickling at the contact as it drifted through his chest, and wrapped a wraith-like limb about his cheek.  
  
_He says h__e is glad you __can't hear him._  
  
The spirit laughed and a few of the candles sputtered out.  
  
_Because that would make you sad._  
  
The spirit laughed again, and half the room was filled with the smoke of extinguished lights. It clouded his vision and dirtied the thick air of his room, and he lost his grip on the ghost's presence.  
  
_But you are already rather sad, aren't you? That only makes him cry more._  
  
The spirit sneered in contempt and rose from its position before him, rushing from his home quickly, passing invisible hands over each and every candle and snuffing them all out. Then, satisfied that the room was dark and silent, the wraith winked out of his plane of existence and left him alone.

It was turning again into twilight by the time the tears that had fallen on the floor had dried. The smoke had settled out of its thin, silky tendrils and covered his home in a blanket of foggy haze. He had already fallen in sleep in zazen and had not read the final words of the candles that the spirit had scattered, the last drops of wax fallen haphazardly. Had there been a light in the room he surely would have seen.

_Seishirou is waiting._

But all the candles had gone out, and it was dark when he woke. He sighed then, picking himself off the floor and groping his way into the bedroom where his neglected bed lay.

He did not bother to light the candles again, and his rooms forever remained in darkness.

End _When all Lights Go Out_


End file.
